Three years after the release of her debut poetry collection Homecoming, Filipino writer Marj Ostani returns with The Thing About Eating Alone—a sophomore collection originally conceived before her first book and now arriving as its long-awaited companion.
Photo: MIRRORBALL ASIA
Officially launching on August 29, 2026, in Makati City, The Thing About Eating Alone continues Ostani’s exploration of memory, belonging, and the idea of home while venturing into more intimate emotional terrain. Written in direct conversation with Homecoming, the collection asks what happens when home is no longer a place of refuge, examining emotional absence, fractured intimacy, survival, and the difficult work of recovery.
Through recurring images of meals, rooms, hands, and silence, the book constructs a poetic language around hunger—not only for food, but for safety, tenderness, belonging, and the possibility of beginning again. While Homecoming asks what it means to return home, The Thing About Eating Alone asks what remains when there is nowhere left to return.
Photo: MIRRORBALL ASIA
Reflecting on the release, Ostani shares, “This book existed long before Homecoming, but I wasn’t ready to release it. I needed time, not to finish writing it, but to recover from it. So much of this collection lives inside difficult memories. Three years later, I feel ready to let these poems belong to other people.”
She adds, “This isn’t a book that tries to resolve pain or neatly arrive at healing. If anything, it’s a book that gives anger permission to exist. I hope readers who recognize themselves in these poems leave feeling a little less alone, and with the reminder that even after everything we’ve survived, we don’t have to stop moving toward our lives.”
The collection arrives after three years of personal and creative evolution.
The announcement follows the opening of Philippine pre-orders with the first copies to be released during the official launch on August 29. The Thing About Eating Alone will also be available at the 47th Manila International Book Fair from September 9–13 at the SMX Convention Center Manila, where Ostani will be exhibiting alongside fellow independent Filipino authors.
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